Aftermath

Ju Hua was not surprised that the Old Man died under his strike; the opponent had no reason to be able to block that move.

Previously, he had only used his insights into the Dao of the Sword to fight the Old Man to a draw, but that last attack contained his full strength and possessed power far surpassing his past efforts.

Ju Hua was already a Perfected Primal God-Fiend in the God-Fiend Path, and because he practiced the top-tier Crimsonbright Diagram of the Nine Heavens, he was no weaker than other God-Fiends who had reached the Initial Void Refinement Stage through body refinement.

At the same cultivation level, God-Fiend body refinement is naturally stronger than Qi refinement. After his tribulation, his Earth Immortal Golden Lotus had sustained damage, leaving his magic power at only eighty percent of its original purity; thus, even as a God-Fiend body refiner at the Initial Void Refinement Stage, he was not weaker than his foundation in the Qi Refinement Path.

However, Ju Hua's strength in the Qi Refinement Path was still significantly higher than his God-Fiend body refinement because he possessed the Litian Sword Formation! The boost to his strength provided by those nine top-grade immortal swords was no small matter.

Furthermore, Ju Hua had long ago comprehended the seventh style of the Great Sorrow Sword Art, the "Heaven Sword Style." However, having been buried in diligent cultivation, he had always felt something was missing, and for many years, he felt he was still a step away from the eighth style of the Great Sorrow Sword Art.

Today, Ju Hua had engaged the Old Man in a fierce battle, initially intending to make him lower his guard while probing his true strength. To his surprise, he had actually achieved a breakthrough!

With this breakthrough, Ju Hua's strength had naturally surged once again.

In the strike that killed the Old Man, Ju Hua did not hesitate to use his newly comprehended sword move. Even more terrifyingly, this strike incorporated a portion of the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth into his Dao of the Sword.

Over the years, Ju Hua had not spent much effort on the fusion of these two Daos, so progress had been slow. Even so, the power of this strike far exceeded merely using the Dao of the Sword to drive his immortal swords.

To make matters worse, Ju Hua's strike was also amplified by "Heartforce"!

Ever since Ju Hua had inadvertently applied Heartforce to his archery, he realized his Talent in this path was incredible, so he had spent no small amount of effort delving into it.

The result was exactly as Ju Hua expected; it did not take long for him to apply Heartforce to his sword.

Although the application was crude at first, after many years of refinement, the technique had taken shape, ensuring that no Heartforce was wasted during use.

During his ten years of tempering in the Illusion Demon Realm, Ju Hua's Heartforce realm had advanced by leaps and bounds, leaving him only a step away from the third level, "Dominator." Although he had only unleashed one strike just now, it had consumed nearly one-third of his Heartforce!

Because of the massive consumption and the refinement of his Heartforce technique, there was very little waste, which amplified the power of that strike to a truly terrifying degree.

With a stronger magic treasure, a Dao that was significantly stronger than before, and the terrifying addition of Heartforce, how could the Old Man—who was a Celestial Immortal, but far from a top-tier one—possibly block Ju Hua's strike?

Therefore, Ju Hua felt not even a hint of surprise that he had pulverized his opponent in a single blow.

After collecting the Old Man's treasures, Ju Hua began to sweep the battlefield.

He felt little psychological burden for killing the Old Man; after all, the man had sought his own death by initiating the attack, and there was nothing to fault in Ju Hua killing him in self-defense.

However, the Old Man had been sent by the Xia Emperor to investigate the Illusion Demon Realm. If he died for no reason, regardless of how the Xia Emperor might react, the Celestial Immortals stationed nearby would certainly come to investigate.

Celestial Immortals possessed the ability to reverse Space-Time. Just as in the Desolate Era, when Ji Ning killed the young master of the Shaoyan Clan in a fit of rage, the Shaoyan Clan's Celestial Immortals had reversed time to uncover everything.

However, at Ju Hua's current level, he had ways to interfere with the investigations of ordinary Celestial Immortals.

Ju Hua had already mastered the eighth style of the Great Sorrow Sword Art and was not far from fully comprehending the entire Dao of the Sword; if he could not even handle such a minor matter, his cultivation would have been in vain.

After disrupting the local Space-Time, a look of satisfaction appeared on Ju Hua's face. In this way, even if the investigating Celestial Immortals found the site of their battle, they would never be able to discover what had happened.

Unless a Pure Yang True Immortal arrived in person, the path of backtracking through time was effectively severed!

But in the Great Xia World, aside from the ancestors hidden within the top-tier tribes, the only true Pure Yang True Immortal was the Xia Emperor himself.

Would the Xia Emperor personally run to the Autumn Mountain Great Marsh to investigate a single Celestial Immortal? The possibility existed, but it was truly slim.

The deceased Old Man was merely a standard Celestial Immortal; the Xia Emperor might not value him enough for such an effort.

Of course, there are no airtight walls in this world, and Ju Hua knew that he could hide this for a time, but not for an eternity.

If the Xia Emperor truly wanted to investigate, he could use other methods besides backtracking through time; Ju Hua could think of several himself.

For instance, he could find someone skilled in the Dao of Deduction to deduce the identity of the killer.

Naturally, the skill required would have to be far beyond the ordinary.

Although Ju Hua was only a Loose Immortal, he had become so powerful in that state and possessed an Immortal Abode passed down from the Sanshou Daoist. If an ordinary person tried to deduce his fate, they would only find him shrouded in fog, impossible to decipher.

If deducing Ju Hua directly was this difficult, it would be even harder to deduce him through the deceased Old Man.

There were too many uncertainties in this world, and Ju Hua had no foolproof plan, but he did not regret his actions.

All he could do now was his best; if he were truly discovered, Ju Hua would not sit and wait for death.

He already had several contingency plans in mind.

After clearing all traces, Ju Hua acted as if nothing had happened and flew away from the area at high speed.

Taking a wide detour, Ju Hua flew nearly ten thousand miles in one breath before randomly selecting a mountain peak to open a cave dwelling and begin meditating in silence.

At a time like this, Ju Hua could not leave the Illusion Demon Realm, or it would make him look guilty.

Less than half an hour after Ju Hua left, two figures crossed the edge of the Illusion Demon Realm and sped toward its core.

The two consisted of a man with a face full of vicissitudes and an old woman with silver hair.

Judging by their aura, both were Celestial Immortals!

After flying for a moment, the man called out to the old woman, took out a turtle-shell-like magic treasure, and began to chant incantations.

A long while later, the man retracted the treasure and whispered a few words to the old woman via sound transmission; then, the two set off once more.

The pair moved at extreme speed, and their target was the very heart of the Illusion Demon Realm!